She interrupted him remorselessly. "'Tis safe for me, anyhow. The grandfather may rouse any day and tell me where the gold is hidden. Once it is found, none will covet the graveyard."
Shâhbâsh wrinkled his hideous face to an appalling frown.
"God knows! If not, then it is a case of digging graves all my life till I get over-scant of breath for texts and mattock together. If only the sickness would come, 'twould give more chance. For the fox of a father-in-law will be claiming shares of treasure with thee if I dig aught but graves. Lo! mai Suttu, I tell thee, 'tis ghoul-like work. I watch the old folk in the village, and my fingers itch to give them a blessed bed in Deen Ali's yard. 'Tis destroying my soul. Thou must marry, or I am damned!"
"Sure the fairy will make thee a paradise anywhere," laughed Suttu. "Lo, they come! Is all prepared? Alms or no alms, Deen Ali's bed must be ready for the faithful. 'Tis in the bond."
She spoke with a grave dignity quite apart from her previous manner.
"Would God they had put the alms in the bond likewise!" grumbled the dwarf as he slid into the shallow grave to sweep some loosened soil from the niche hollowed in the hard ground to one side for the uncoffined tenant. Then he swung himself out again by his brawny arms and strained his shortsighted eyes toward the advancing procession.
"'Tis well," he muttered, as a sudden braying of shawms, beating of drums, and skirling of songs rent the still dawn. "At least they remember that the burying of the old is as a bridal. Sure it may be better than I feared, and they will not send the decent patriarch back to his friends half naked."
It was an odd funeral. The bier, covered by a tissue-paper canopy, swayed as it was borne shoulder-high at a slow trot. The crowd laughed and sang. The streamers fluttered, flying round that still, muslin-swathed form bound with tinsel. Only Suttu seemed in keeping with it, as she stood forward welcoming it to Deen Ali's bed.
But the next instant, as she stepped aside to let it pass, a malicious look of amusement was on her face as she returned the greeting of a pock-marked man with one eye.
Then, her rôle of hostess being over, she walked away to the date-grove followed by admiring eyes. For Suttu, the fakeerni, if somewhat outrageous, was distinctly attractive. That made her vow of celibacy all the more unnatural.